Nonsense and the Freedom of Speech: What Meaning Means for the First Amendment

A great deal of everyday expression is, strictly speaking, nonsense. But courts and scholars have done little to consider whether or why such meaningless speech, like nonrepresentational art, falls within “the freedom of speech.” If, as many suggest, meaning is what separates speech from sound and expression from conduct, then the constitutional case for nonsense is complicated. And because nonsense is so common, the case is also important — artists like Lewis Carroll and Jackson Pollock are not the only putative “speakers” who should be concerned about the outcome. This Article is the first to explore thoroughly the relationship between nonsense and the freedom of speech; in doing so, it suggests ways to determine what “meaning” means for First Amendment purposes. The Article begins by demonstrating the scope and constitutional salience of meaningless speech, showing that nonsense is multifarious, widespread, and sometimes intertwined with traditional First Amendment values like autonomy, the marketplace of ideas, and democracy. The second part of the Article argues that exploring nonsense can illuminate the meaning of meaning itself. This, too, is an important task, for although free speech discourse often relies on the concept of meaning to chart the Amendment’s scope, courts and scholars have done relatively little to establish what it entails. Analytic philosophers, meanwhile, have spent the past century doing little else. Their efforts — echoes of which can already be heard in First Amendment doctrine — suggest that free speech doctrine is best served by finding meaning in the way words are used, rather than in their relationship to extra-linguistic concepts

READING: THE CONFERENCES

Literacy for the New Millennium First International Conference Australian Reading Association Melbourne Australia — July 199

Målsägandens oro inför rättegångsprocessen

Relationen mellan skuldupplevelse och skuldbeläggande i domstolsförhandlingar - en jämförande studie av våldtäkt, misshandel och bedräger

Challenges in preserving the “good doctor” norm: physicians' discourses on changes to the medical logic during the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic

IntroductionThe COVID-19 pandemic was a tremendous challenge to the practice of modern medicine. In this study, we use neo-institutional theory to gain an in-depth understanding of how physicians in Sweden narrate how they position themselves as physicians when practicing modern medicine during the first wave of the pandemic. At focus is medical logic, which integrates rules and routines based on medical evidence, practical experience, and patient perspectives in clinical decision-making.MethodsTo understand how physicians construct their versions of the pandemic and how it impacted the medical logic in which they practice, we analyzed the interviews from 28 physicians in Sweden by discursive psychology.ResultsThe interpretative repertoires showed how COVID-19 created an experience of knowledge vacuum in medical logic and how physicians dealt with clinical patient dilemmas. They had to find unorthodox ways to rebuild a sense of medical evidence while still being responsible for clinical decision-making for patients with critical care needs.DiscussionIn the knowledge vacuum occurring during the first wave of COVID-19, physicians could not use their common medical knowledge nor rely on published evidence or their clinical judgment. They were thus challenged in their norm of being the “good doctor”. One practical implication of this research is that it provides a rich empirical account where physicians are allowed to mirror, make sense, and normalize their own individual and sometimes painful struggle to uphold the professional role and related medical responsibility in the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be important to follow how the tremendous challenge of COVID-19 to medical logic plays out over time in the community of physicians. There are many dimensions to study, with sick leave, burnout, and attrition being some interesting areas

Terapeutens rätt : rättslig och terapeutisk logik i domstolsförhandlingar

In this dissertation, I explore a quite unique legal situation, namely administrative court hearings relating to coercive interventions: the Care of Young Persons Act (LVU), Care of Abusers (Special Provisions) Act (LVM), and the Compulsory Psychiatric Care Act (LPT). There are three central participatory roles in the court hearings: The official party is the authority who files the application for coercive intervention – either a chief psychiatrist or a social welfare board (typically represented by a social worker or sometimes a lawyer assisted by a social worker), whereas the citizen party is the person about whom the application is brought. The citizen party is represented by a legal representative. The professionals represent two different logics: therapeutic and judicial. The purpose of this dissertation has been to study the tension between therapeutic and judicial logic in court hearings relating to compulsory care. With theoretical concepts from Scott (1995) and Wetherell & Potter (1998), it is possible to say that the therapeutic and judicial logics are built up by institutional elements that are communicated through interpretative repertoires. Three questions are central: 1. How do professional participators handle the different role expectations embedded in therapeutic and judicial logic? In this case, I am particularly interested in role conflicts faced by social workers and psychiatrists. 2. How do different institutional elements (regulative, normative/cognitive) play out in the court hearings? 3. To what extent can these court hearings be considered a scrutinizing order of discourse, where the arguments of official party are subjected to critical examination? In my analysis I am inspired by both critical discourse analysis and organizational theory, more precisely, new institutionalism. These two perspectives provide useful insights and make it possible to combine the micro- and macro levels in the analysis. Data for the analysis consist of 43 court hearings and 31 interviews, gathered from two different county administrative courts in Sweden. All written documents used and produced by the courts are also part of our data. The dissertation consists of five studies that indicate that the court hearings hardly can be described as a scrutinising order of discourse. In spite of this, the court constantly finds that the legal criteria for coercive intervention are satisfied. Neither the official party nor the legal representative argue according to a judicial logic. Instead, therapeutic logic dominates the order of discourse. When the arguments for compulsory care are therapeutic, they are not explicitly related to the criteria in the law. In my interpretation, the reason why the conflict between therapeutic and judicial logic is not realised can be found in the existence of a logic of normalisation. This ideological logic of normalisation can be found in most of the institutions in the Swedish society and are built on the idea of traditional welfare norms

Experience of guilt in court hearings : Comparing rape, assault and fraud cases

Feelings of guilt often occur when people are subjected to crime. In this study, guilt is defined as a moral and emotional category, as opposed to the legal guilt. The aim of this study was to investigate how crime victims related to feelings of guilt in the court process. Interviews with plaintiffs in rape cases (10) have been compared to interviews with plaintiffs in assault (10) and fraud cases (10) in order find out if there are differences in the perceptions of guilt for each type of crime. The interviews are analysed by discursive psychology and three interpretative repertoires have been identified: self-blaming, guilt imposed and guilt resistance. The results show that plaintiffs in rape cases expressed more feelings of being guilt-imposed compared to plaintiffs in fraud and assault cases. Some plaintiffs in the rape cases describe how they actively opposed what they perceived was guilty-imposed practices in court.Relationen mellan skuldupplevelse och skuldbeläggande i domstolsförhandlingar - en jämförande studie av våldtäkt, misshandel och bedräger

Offer, minne, och utsatthet : diskurser om alkohol i våldtäkts- och misshandelsmål

The alcohol consumption of female rape victims is often discussed during rape trials. This has been regarded as an emblematic example of victim blaming and the failures of the legal system in relation to rape. From a feminist perspective it can be seen as an expression of the structural subordination of women in society in general. This article investigates the meanings attached to alcohol in written court decisions in Swedish rape trials (2008-2012). Rape trials are contrasted with assault trials, where the complainants are men. Thirty court decisions from each type of trial are compared, with the same number of guilty and not-guilty verdicts. Quantitative analysis reveals that alcohol consumption is mentioned more often in rape trials, where it also appears more relevant to decision-making. The complainants' consumption is mentioned four times more often than the defendants' consumption. In assault decisions, the mentioning of alcohol consumption is distributed roughly equally between the parties.   The analysis shows how a large proportion of the alcohol references in both rape trials and assault trials can be regarded as largely irrelevant noise. The remaining alcohol references are understood in terms of five interpretative repertoires: 1) the accuracy of memory on part of witnesses; 2) explanations of seemingly irrational behaviors; 3) vulnerability, 4) getting the victim drunk, and 5) moral character. The latter three interpretive repertoires are more common in rape decisions. As a conclusion, part of the preoccupation with rape victims’ alcohol consumption can be attributed to protectionary strategies, and should thus not be regarded as victim-blaming. However, some assessments appear to build on assumptions that information about alcohol consumption is indicative to moral character that is relevant to court decisions. Hur våldtäktsmål och våldtäktsoffer hanteras är en ständigt aktuell fråga, som nyligen föranledde ytterligare en statlig offentlig utredning (SOU 2016:60). I denna artikel har Maritha Jacobsson och Stefan Sjöström undersökt hur alkohol relateras till i våldtäktsdomar, och jämfört detta med misshandelsdomar. De konstaterar att alkoholkonsumtion ibland kan hjälpa till att få en fällande dom, medan det i andra fall blir till en nackdel för den målsägande.Diskriminerar rättssystemet kvinnliga brottsoffer? Trovärdighet hos kvinnliga och manliga brottsoffer (Brottsoffermyndigheten

Offer, minne, och utsatthet : diskurser om alkohol i våldtäkts- och misshandelsmål

The alcohol consumption of female rape victims is often discussed during rape trials. This has been regarded as an emblematic example of victim blaming and the failures of the legal system in relation to rape. From a feminist perspective it can be seen as an expression of the structural subordination of women in society in general. This article investigates the meanings attached to alcohol in written court decisions in Swedish rape trials (2008-2012). Rape trials are contrasted with assault trials, where the complainants are men. Thirty court decisions from each type of trial are compared, with the same number of guilty and not-guilty verdicts. Quantitative analysis reveals that alcohol consumption is mentioned more often in rape trials, where it also appears more relevant to decision-making. The complainants' consumption is mentioned four times more often than the defendants' consumption. In assault decisions, the mentioning of alcohol consumption is distributed roughly equally between the parties.   The analysis shows how a large proportion of the alcohol references in both rape trials and assault trials can be regarded as largely irrelevant noise. The remaining alcohol references are understood in terms of five interpretative repertoires: 1) the accuracy of memory on part of witnesses; 2) explanations of seemingly irrational behaviors; 3) vulnerability, 4) getting the victim drunk, and 5) moral character. The latter three interpretive repertoires are more common in rape decisions. As a conclusion, part of the preoccupation with rape victims’ alcohol consumption can be attributed to protectionary strategies, and should thus not be regarded as victim-blaming. However, some assessments appear to build on assumptions that information about alcohol consumption is indicative to moral character that is relevant to court decisions. Hur våldtäktsmål och våldtäktsoffer hanteras är en ständigt aktuell fråga, som nyligen föranledde ytterligare en statlig offentlig utredning (SOU 2016:60). I denna artikel har Maritha Jacobsson och Stefan Sjöström undersökt hur alkohol relateras till i våldtäktsdomar, och jämfört detta med misshandelsdomar. De konstaterar att alkoholkonsumtion ibland kan hjälpa till att få en fällande dom, medan det i andra fall blir till en nackdel för den målsägande.Diskriminerar rättssystemet kvinnliga brottsoffer? Trovärdighet hos kvinnliga och manliga brottsoffer (Brottsoffermyndigheten